The Chicago police torture settlement.

[kwassa]

Speaking of crimes against African-American citizens. Over time.

I never heard of this, and looked up past threads on DU. None of them got more than a few posts, for such a big story. I hope this gets a few more.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-burge-reparations-emanuel-met-20150414-story.html#page=1

The city of Chicago on Tuesday sought to put to rest one of its most persistent scandals, proposing a $5.5 million reparations fund for dozens of torture victims connected to former Chicago police Cmdr. Jon Burge and his so-called midnight crew of rogue detectives.

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Taylor and other lawyers have said as many as 120 men, mostly African-Americans, were tortured from early 1972 to late 1991. Burge and his detectives had gained a reputation for solving brutal murders, rapes and deadly arsons in some of the South Side's most violent neighborhoods by obtaining confessions.

Increasingly, however, suspects and their lawyers claimed that the officers used suffocation, electric shock and even Russian roulette to coerce the confessions, but those claims routinely were ignored by Cook County prosecutors and rebuffed by criminal court judges.

By 1993 Burge was fired after he was linked to the torture of cop-killer Andrew Wilson. In 2006, after a four-year investigation, special Cook County prosecutors found evidence of widespread abuse by Burge and detectives under his command.